The field of joint connections is very old and such prior art exists. However, the prior art has not provided a simple and yet reliable multiple joint support member which interconnects three members to one another with two joints having their axis of rotation disposed at right angles to one another and include means to bias said elements together in a normal co-planar position as well as preselected releasably latched positions rotated from said normal position.
One application for such a multi-jointed support member relates to a support clamp which may be used to mount an intervenous multiple transducer plate or holder to a conventional pole support for use with delivering intervenous solutions to patients such as commonly used in hospitals. In such an application, it is required to "prime" the conduit tubing communicating the solution to the transducers by removing any entrapped air prior to operating the valves to feed the solution to the patients.
Prior to the present invention there were no clamp support means to provide a convenient or facile means to accomplish this maneuver which requires the transducer plate or holder to be rotated or turned upside down and then returned to the right side up position while the whole assembly was connected to and supported upon the I.V. pole support.
Therefore, routinely this priming action was accomplished by manually rotating the transducer holder and any associated valve means using both hands after the assembly was removed from the I.V. pole. During emergency situations, since there is no other support holding the assembly, inadvertent dropping of the whole assembly during this required manuveur has caused serious delay in administering the needed fluids. Additionally this maneuver requires the use of both hands, thus preventing the nursing personnel from having one hand free to assist other personnel or perform other duties.
In this application, it is also desirable to be able to position the transducer holder in various positions relative to a normally co-planar position with the remaining support structure. The hinge-like joint connection makes this possible to provide easy multiple positioning of any device mounted thereto by rotating this member about an axis disposed at ninety degrees to the axis of the other joint connection.